WPCP
WPCP is the Paramount Network affiliate serving the small coastal town of Pacifico, California. It is one of the few English-language television stations owned by leading Spanish-language broadcaster, Univision Communications. It is also one of the stations which have a W at the beginning of its callsign as one of the exceptions to the East/West rule. It's Emergency Alert System is hooked up to KWO37 and most of the primary EAS stations for California. Syndicated programs include, but are not limited to, Maury, DragonflyTV, Double Dare 3000, Pizza Maniacs, and Jeopardy. It also broadcasts Alex Jones' Infowars podcast on weekdays at noon. Gallery Wpcptornadowarning.png|WPCP Tsunami Warning from 2011 during DragonflyTV. infowarsparamountnetwork8.png|WPCP Coastal Flood Warning (text cuts off) from Infowars in January 2016. 8cast.png|8Cast current logo from March 2015. Paramountnetworkstudio.png|WPCP's studios (a converted slaughterhouse) History The station first signed on the air as WKWK on July 23, 1959, operating as an independent station from a bare-bones facility somewhere near the border with Baja California. It operated from a transmitter bought from a rummage sale from a church that had intended to start a UHF-TV station. It broadcast at 1,000 watts and had little presence in the market at the time; indeed, most residents of the town and the state of California as a whole didn't even know it existed. All of the equipment, a PA-302 General Precision Laboratories kinescope, a film chain, a Teletype machine, the news studio, various cameras, an antenna, and CONELRAD equipment, were located in a old movie theater projection room. Later on in life, the station was sold to Spanish International Communications, who intended to turn it into a Spanish International Network station, but ended up keeping it an English language independent. Later on, SIC turned it into a Paramount Network affiliate, moved the station's facilities to Pacifico, the area it served, changed the call-sign to WPCP, and upgraded to a more powerful transmitter (952,000 watts). The station's transmitter was located in the back of the M Motel, and used diesel power, which was totally inadequate for a television transmitter. During it's early days with the Paramount Network, the station's equipment, news studio, film chain, tape decks, mixers, character generators, satellite receiver and Emergency Broadcast System unit, were located in a converted slaughterhouse. WPCP still uses the converted slaughterhouse facility as of today. Despite having troubles, it managed to get on cable throughout the market, and was the #1 kids station in town. Spanish International Communications had been paying syndication distributors, the diesel fuel supplier, Paramount Pictures, Gulf and Western, and other creditors in the thousands of dollars, and the station was hugely popular. Max Headroom broadcast incident On November 22, 1987, WPCP's signal was hijacked by an unknown person wearing a Max Headroom mask – the second such signal interruption incident to occur that night, with the first taking place during the 9:00 p.m. newscast on Boston RKO Network affiliate WBOR two hours prior to the hacker's intrusion of the WPCP signal. While WBOR's analog transmitter was (and still is) located atop the 200 Clarendon building, allowing for engineers to almost immediately thwart the video hacker by changing the studio-to-transmitter frequency, WPCP's transmitter was located in a low spot, in the back of the aforementioned M Motel, which made it harder to stop the hacker before the interruption voluntarily concluded after almost two minutes. The hacker, named Bill Davids, was tracked down by INTERPOL agents the next day, driving a RV with a high-power satellite installed, and was charged with broadcast signal intrusion. The Boston hijacking was performed by a cohort, who committed suicide by cop. Category:Paramount Network affiliated stations Category:Paramount Network Category:Pacifico Category:California Category:Channel 8 Category:Former independent stations Category:Univision Communications Category:Viacom Category:Viacom Media Networks Category:Television channels and stations established in 1959 Category:ViacomCBS